Hello, everyone! This is post number two from our Sparkle Saturday blog party! Enjoy! Xx

We all need to practice being more positive every day! Thinking positive leads to feeling positive and feeling positive leads to being the sparkling people that we truly are!

The following bright and happy exercises are perfect for inspiring children and adults to sparkle! The exercises are perfect for adults because we need to express our imaginations and open ourselves up creatively in order to feel happy, grounded and more childlike.

The exercises are perfect for children because children need to establish positive habits that will help them be happy and healthy for their lifetimes. (Children are constantly acquiring tools from us to help them in their futures.) Also, it is essential that children see adults caring for ourselves by playing and being creative because it makes growing up a more positive and exciting experience.

And most importantly, these are perfect exercises to do together because everyone needs to work as a team in order to build a positive foundation for ourselves, our families and our communities!

Emmy's creative activities for feeling positively sparkling:

1.) Create positive affirmation bracelets as a family. These can easily be made with paper and crayons, but if you are feeling particularly crafty try making a collage, or use found objects, felt, beads, a cut-up old t-shirt...anything works, really! Let the bracelets serve as positive reminders throughout tough times or stressful days.

2.) Blast your space with uplifting color! What colors make you feel sparkly? Let your child decorate your space (office, kitchen desk, a color shrine) with these colors. Then help your child decorate his or her space with their favorite colors. Surrounding yourself with your favorite colors is essential to feeling sparkly. If you aren't ready to make a permanent change, just hang colorful pictures on the wall using tape or sticky tack. You will be amazed at how positive you feel when surrounded by happy colors!

3.) Draw, paint, color portraits. Sit down with a child and ask the child to draw a portrait of sparkling you! (Trust me, the child sees so much more sparkle in you than you can see). While he or she is drawing you, you make a sparkling portrait of the him or her! Don't think about it. Just let what makes them sparkle flow onto your page. And never ever judge your artwork, it is absolutely perfect!

Be sure to post your portraits somewhere visible so that you can be reminded to sparkle whenever you need to! Seeing your sparkling portraits will help you both feel more positive as well as help with building a better self-image. You are also teaching your child the important lesson of taking the time to love and care for himself or herself in a fun and creative way.

4.) Try out storytelling. Take turns telling one another about your most sparkliest memory ever. Perhaps it was your child's birth or the big Valentine's Day snowball fight with your brother. Relive the sparkly moment by acting it out with your voice and your body.

Storytelling is an exciting way to pass along family fun and personal history so that your child knows where he or she fits into the big family picture. This strengthens and secures a child's self-esteem and self-worth. Storytelling is also important because it shows everyone that their lives are valuable and worth sharing with others.

5.) Create a sparkly snowflake out of paper. We are all unique and special just like magical snowflakes. What better way to honor our individual sparkly selves than to cover a window or to hang sparkly snowflakes in your home. You can even write what makes you brilliantly unique on the back of the snowflakes, so as they flutter around in the air, they spread your unique sparkling magic throughout your home.

Well, I have tales to tell and you have lots of creative fun ahead of you today! If you are in the giant snow storm, please stay snug and safe. Happy Sparkly Saturday! Xx